Friday Roundup: Climate Change, China, Cash Transfers & Bill's Letter

Submitted by LTD Editors
On Fri, 02/01/2013

With warnings on the effects of climate change becoming starker with every passing day, good news came in the form of a story[1] that the world's biggest seed banks are getting funding to help protect and develop new varieties of seeds resistant to climate change and other threats.

More sobering was a post[2] by the World Bank's Phil Hay about Mozambique's recent devastating floods and public sector measures to help the country recover.

China may be confronting challenges in relation to its workforce and in terms of inequality. Earlier this month Mitali Das and Papa N'Diaye published an IMF working paper [3]on whether China has reached the Lewis Turning Point, where the economy moves from a huge supply of low-cost workers to a labor shortage economy. After 12 years China has released data on income inequality, as explained[4] in The Economist.

In an insightful post[5], Damien De Walque explains why "CCTs are more effective than UCTs in improving the enrollment of “marginal” children, those who are are less likely to go to school, including girls, younger children, and lower ability children."

Billionaire Bill Gates garnered widespread publicity this week in his annual letter [6]to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation -- www.billsletter.com[7]. Gates even appeared on the popular Colbert Report (see video below). His letter makes the case for deploying measurement and for innovating to improve data collection in developing countries in the drive to reduce hunger, poverty and disease.